


(this is heaven in hiding)

by soixantecroissants



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, and some straight up sexytimes, featuring a couch, of the angsty but hopeful variety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 20:50:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18080663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soixantecroissants/pseuds/soixantecroissants
Summary: In this shit excuse of a world to live in, she's all that makes him feel like he can – that it's even possible, to open his eyes and have it mean something again.Or, Frank comes to say goodbye for the last time, only to realize—





	(this is heaven in hiding)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [garglyswoof](https://archiveofourown.org/users/garglyswoof/gifts).



> based on these word prompts -
> 
>  **ansare** \- _to hardly breathe, to be out of breath_
> 
>  **selcouth** \- _unfamiliar, rare, strange, and yet wonderful_

 

This isn't – it wasn't supposed to happen this way.

One minute, she's standing there, whole body drawn into firm rigid lines, watching Frank struggle with whatever he's come here to say.

He'd come here to say sorry. Sorry he's always letting her down, sorry he couldn't be better for her, sorry she'd lost a good pair of shoes 'cause he's pretty sure that had something to do with him too. He'd come here to say sorry, and to look her in the eye when he said it, but there's so much raw hurt and just –  _anger_ , a slow-burn of it simmering right under her skin – that he doesn't know how.

He'd come here to say sorry, to mean it, and leave.

Karen's not making it easy for him. Then again,  _easy_  has never been a thing that they do.  _Easy_  is not in the cards, not for someone like him, and nothing he's touched can ever be safe again either.

He knows this. He knows this, and yet.

"Say it, Frank." She lifts one shoulder, shaking her head like she already knows that he can't. "Just, say what you need to, or don't, and just go."

And then, so softly he thinks it couldn't've broken him harder if she'd shouted it from the rooftops at him, Karen says, "I can't keep doing this with you."

"I know. Believe me, I—" Something heavy rises up in his throat, choking him off for a second. "I know it's unfair to drop in on you like this."

She's barefoot again, he can't help but notice, her toes curling in from the cold metal doorframe as she crosses her arms, fingers gripping her elbows. There's something vulnerable about how she's standing that makes him feel ashamed of himself, and he forces his gaze back up to hers, so that she can see it in him too.

He's rocking forward as he says it, breath coming out in short, harsh spurts. "You asked me, Karen, back in the hospital, you asked me to—"

He ducks his head, shuffles another step toward her, willing his mouth to keep going. It takes several tries, and his heart, it's slamming up to the walls of his chest with the weight of everything he doesn't know how to even begin saying to her. "You want to know what you mean to me, Karen?"

Her hand moves out to grasp his arm, and he blinks down at it, knocked back into a confused sort of silence – but she isn't using it to push him away, only steadying him just like she's always done, holding on with one hand because she knows he can't bear to have her use both.

Slowly, Frank reaches over, slipping his fingers underneath hers. They weave together, his thumb stroking over the back of her hand, and he bends his head down, carefully pressing his mouth to her knuckles.

One minute, Karen's standing there in the doorway, watching him, probably feeling the way his breath stutters out when he kisses her again.

The next—

Her fingers are touching his jawline, coaxing him to look back at her. Her eyes are bright, lips tinged pink and glistening where her tongue's slipped out to wet them. She's – closer than he'd realized, and before he's half-aware of what he's doing, he has a hand wrapped around the side of her neck, fingers tangling in the soft silk of her hair.

"Karen," he rasps.

She lets out a shaky sigh of her own, closing her eyes for just a moment. "What you did, Frank, you can't…" He feels her shoulders square, the sharp finality in her voice as she tells him, "You can't do that to me again. Okay?"

It wasn't supposed to happen this way, but Frank, he fills up his lungs with the scent of her, breathes out a hoarse "Okay," and he knows it's not a lie.

"Okay," says Karen, cupping his cheek.

One minute, Frank's letting his forehead drop to nudge against hers, hand tightening further into her hair. She rests a palm on his chest, waiting.

The next—

Her lips are soft, when he leans in the rest of the way, leaving a soft kiss in the corner. He pulls slightly back, enough that their mouths are just barely hovering apart, breathing shallowed, noses touching.

And then they're both moving, mouths slanting together, bodies pressing until there's no space left between them. Karen winds her arms behind his neck as he backs her up against the door, pushing it all the way open. They stumble, but Frank only grips her tighter, dragging his hands across her rib cage and feeling her breath give a hitch as he wraps them around to span over her back.

She lets out a small gasp as he lifts her off of the ground and carries her over the threshold, hair curtaining around them as she bends down to kiss him again.

There's nothing soft about it this time, these long breathless seconds of their mouths moving together, lips parting, tongues sliding, desire spiraling white-hot down the length of Frank's spine. He fumbles once they're inside, foot finding the door and kicking it closed, nearly going down hard when Karen puts her mouth on his jaw – some sensitive spot just by his ear – and plants a kiss there, too.

"You can put me down, Frank," she murmurs, in a voice she's never used on him before, all coyness and heat and Christ is he in for it. "I'm not as delicate as you think I am."

He tightens his arms and hoists her closer, voice dropping to something dangerously low. "That a promise, Miss Page?"

Her fingers splay over his jawline, and she smiles as she brings her lips back to his.

Frank kisses her back like a starved man, making noises deep in his throat when she tugs his lower lip between her teeth. He adjusts his hold on her, sliding an arm down to cradle her backside, freeing the other to palm the side of her face and bury his fingers back in her hair.

He doesn't know where they end up, keeps walking her backward until something stops them – the couch, he thinks, and he sets her down onto the back edge of it, solidly stationing himself in between her thighs.

She falls slightly forward, and he's there to brace her, the warmth of her body pressing up against his. He thinks he could kiss her for hours like this, with the world simply fading away in their arms, time meaning nothing but space between heartbeats. Hers. His.

God, if he thought he had the strength to leave her before.

Karen's got her hands in his hair now, scratching lightly down his scalp until he's shivering into her. She cups both palms around the nape of his neck as she kisses his mouth, and there's a sweetness in the way that she's holding him, the knowledge of it sending another warm shock through his body.

His chest is tight, on the verge of breaking open with something he doesn't quite know how to name, but still he can't stop kissing her, losing all sense of anything else except for the taste of her sigh on his tongue.

She pulls away for a moment, and then they're simply swaying together, breathing ragged as they take each other in. Frank's hands are wandering, gripping the back of her head, her neck, each side of her hip just to feel that she's still there with him.

"Maybe we should…" She gestures between them, runs her palm down the vee of his sweater, hooking a fingertip into the fabric. He bends down to skim a kiss along her collarbone, enjoying the way that her breath shorts out upon contact. "Slow down? Talk for a while, or something?"

"Yeah." Frank parts his mouth over her skin, tongue dipping into the lines of her throat. Her fingers thread back through his hair, arms cradling him closer as her body stretches into his kiss. "Yeah, we should do that."

"Good." He feels her swallow against him, the word a low hum that makes his insides clench with arousal. "Glad we're – in agreement."

He nuzzles a last kiss to the slope of her shoulder, arms loosening his hold, preparing to step back and release her. But then she's wriggling forward, about to slide herself down from the couch, and the movement brings her lower body flush with his.

She lets out another sound he's never heard from her before, a sound of pure sighing pleasure that goes straight to his groin. He's hard for her, fuck and the way that she's moving against him now is not helping, his hips jerking upward on instinct to pin her back into the couch.

"On second thought," she breathes, "maybe talk later. You okay with that?"

Frank kisses her soundly, a new kind of promise behind it, a thought of something forbidden, of  _after, after, after_. The words lodge in his throat, coming out rough and so painfully earnest. "More'n okay."

In one swift motion he's sliding a hand up her spine, the other down her thigh to hook around the back of her knee, and then he's lifting her over the couch, landing her gently onto the cushions below.

He toes off his boots before swinging himself over the back of the couch to join her, carefully lowering his body just above hers.

Her pupils are blown wide as she gazes up at him, teeth digging into the edge of her smile, and Christ he can't remember the last time he saw this much beauty in anything.

He leans his weight into his elbow, dipping deep into the couch cushion as he raises his other hand to her face. His knuckles brush over her temple, thumb stroking her cheekbone as she blinks those long, heavy lashes at him.

"You're here," she says, quietly marveling, taking his face into both of her hands again.

Frank wants to laugh, to shake his head in disbelief that him being here could make some kind of a difference, when she's the one who means everything to him. Just looking at her – he can't stop looking at her – some unbearable ache in his chest starts to spread, pressing up to his breastbone until he's nearly lost his breath from it.

"As long as you want me, Karen," he says, hoarse with the effort of speaking so openly, of laying himself out like this with nothing left between them anymore.

Her fingertips dance lightly over his stubble, mouth curving up in the softest of smiles at him. "And what do you want?"

He glides his fingers through her hair, wrapping around the top of her head until he's got her cradled against his forearm. Her eyes flutter shut as he closes the distance, dragging his mouth over hers in a long, slow kiss.

She's pulling him in, hands gripping his shoulders, and he fully settles himself down along the length of her body, the couch sinking a little beneath their joined weight. A different kind of ache takes hold, the strange but welcome sensation of feeling every part of her with every part of him, the way that they fit, and goddamn,  _finally_.

All these things that Frank had denied himself – how she tastes, how she sighs into him when he slants his mouth sideways and kisses her deeper – all these ways she can make him feel terribly human again, and he.

He can't go back. Not after this.

She shifts beneath him, bringing a leg up to hook behind his thigh, and Frank grinds his hips against her in kind, chasing the friction as she arches her spine up to meet him.

" _God_ , Karen." He practically growls out her name, lips tearing away from hers to bury his face in her neck for a moment, lost to the feel of their bodies sliding together. His breath comes out hard, and he lands a shaky, open-mouthed kiss to a spot just under her jaw, heat building down low when a soft moan escapes her. He wants – God, he wants—

He feels her hands grip the edge of his sweater and tug, and then she's pushing him upright, following closely behind. He lifts his arms as she peels the fabric away, letting it drop to the side and onto the floor.

He settles back onto his knees, watching her in the dim half-lit glow of her apartment. There's a pretty flush to her cheeks, her hair all kinds of tousled, lips pink from being most thoroughly kissed, and he feels a small surge of pride that he did this, that she's only looking at  _him_ , and she wants this just as badly.

She runs her palms down his chest to his waistline, ghosting her fingertips across old scars, trailing over each edge of muscle as if committing every line of his body to memory.

"Not bad," she says at last, with a hint of something mischievous in her smile as she pushes him backwards into the couch.

"Not bad, huh?" echoes Frank, sitting back and shaking his head with a smirk. His hands roam up her thighs to her waist, guiding her over to straddle his lap.

She hums her agreement, settling in with an amused sort of sound. "Yeah, you're all right."

This gentle flirting is utterly foreign to him, but he thinks he loves the way it looks on her, her coy little smiles lighting up fires inside his body. He can't help but bite his lip back at her, teasing, "You, uh…" He reaches to cup the side of her neck, coaxing her down for another kiss. "You're somethin' to look at yourself."

"Am I?" she says, sounding half-breathless. Her lips skim over his browline and down the bridge of his nose. He tightens his grip on her, swallowing hard.

"Like you don't know it," he murmurs, the words hushed, a barely audible rumble from some place low in his throat. "What you're doing to me."

Her hands are warm against the back of his skull, and then they're kissing again, tongues dragging together, and he's the one groaning this time as she rolls her hips downward, chest pressing into his.

He grasps at her top, some slippery silk thing, gliding between his fingers as he gives it a light tug and then stills.

He swallows, rasps, "Can I—"

She's already yanking it over her head, another smile playing across her features as he leans back into the couch, jaw going slack to take in the sight of her – hair almost silver, haloed in moonlight, cream-colored skin that pebbles up slightly when he puts his hands on her.

He bends forward, lips finding her collarbone and then working his way down lower, kissing over the swell of her breast, tracing out the edge of her bra with his tongue.

Karen throws her head back, spine arching beneath his palms as he braces her, and his fingers slide up to the clasp of her bra, fisting around it and twisting until it unhooks. She leans away from him long enough to shrug off the garment and toss it aside, and then Frank's mouth is on her again, closing over a nipple and taking it in between his teeth.

The sound that comes out of her is almost inhuman, and he loses himself to it, moves with his whole body to hold onto her as she pivots her hips into his. He's hard as nails now, everything tight with desire, and he's grasping blindly for purchase, hand encircling the side of her throat and then dragging down, down, palming her other breast and squeezing.

She makes another sound this time, one tinged with maybe frustration, and Frank pulls back, at a loss with his hands still suspended mid-air as she shifts out of his lap for a moment.

"I don't know about you, Frank, but I'm dying a little bit here," she says, reaching down for her waistband. "Do you mind?"

"No, ma'am," he tells her, mouth going dry as she shimmies out of her pants and kicks them aside. He's got a hand over the zipper of his own jeans, half-covering the strain of his erection, but then he rakes his gaze back up and down her body, and he feels overcome again, that this – that she's standing here, like this, just for him.

"You, um, need some help with that?" Karen wants to know, rubbing one hand up against her bare thigh, tucking back a lock of hair by her ear with the other. The gesture's not meant to be a shy one, he thinks, but he's undone by it all the same, needs her to know just how fucking gone he is for her.

"C'mere," he husks, tugging her back down to the couch and then steering her onto her knees, thumbs notched over the jut of her hipbones. He presses a tongue-filled kiss to her navel, feeling her gasp and tense all over as he noses his way down to the lace trim of her underwear.

He's cupping her backside and pressing her closer, sliding a thumb beneath the thin fabric. It's damp in the front, and he breathes in the scent of her, feeling her body go still. There's nothing but this now, her, them, and he glances up to see her eyes shutter closed as he slips his finger inside.

"Frank—" she's gasping his name, hips jerking into his touch as he runs his thumb through her wetness, finding her clit and pressing down. He makes a sound of his own, low and guttural into her skin, sucking another open-mouthed kiss there while she writhes and writhes above him.

He's fighting the urge not to just – flip her over, and fuck her deep into this couch, he'll be going to hell for this all the same. But Christ it's worth every second of waiting, of feeling the ache in him build to a degree that's almost unbearable, just to know he can be with her this way, to hear her say his name like that again, and again, and again.

He readjusts his grip, angling another finger inside and sinking it into her. They're both moaning now, her head thrown back in a picture of blissful abandon. Frank adds a third finger, shifting with the weight of his whole arm to pump them in and out of her, without letting up on the pressure of his thumb rubbing circles over her clit.

She's tight, and wet, and so very warm, and he thinks of what it would feel like, to bury himself into her and let that be the only thing that mattered. In this shit excuse of a world to live in, she's all that makes him feel like he can – that it's even possible, to open his eyes and have it mean something again.

Her hands are caressing all over, across the upward slope of his shoulders toward the sides of his neck to drag her nails lightly into his scalp. He shudders, and curls his fingers in harder, feeling her tremble and rut her hips down to meet him halfway with another low-throated cry.

"Goddamn," he's muttering, fucking into her deeper, his free hand shamelessly groping the curve of her ass as she gasps and moves over him. It's an entirely selfish endeavor, but he only wants more, wants to hear what sound she'll make with his tongue on her instead, and he's nudging his mouth lower, nosing aside that thin strip of lace.

There's a hitch in the way she says his name now, a sound of breathless recognition, but the angle's all wrong, he can't quite position himself how he needs to comfortably reach her, and he grunts his frustration, stilling for a moment.

Karen's smiling at him, he can practically hear it as she doubles over to press a kiss to his forehead. She slides a hand down to wrap around his, guiding his fingers slowly out of her, and he's about to protest when she lifts them to her mouth instead. He's utterly transfixed, watching her lips part around one finger, then the next, sucking him in and releasing each one with a swirl of her tongue and a nip of her teeth.

He falls back into the couch, feeling like the wind's been knocked clean out of him. The smile she gives him is sweet but knowing, and he's helpless to it, can only swallow and grip her hips closer when she lowers her hands to the waist of his jeans.

"I got a better idea," she whispers, and he's sending up a silent prayer, some reckless hope that even now, with her more real to him than anything he's ever felt before, he won't start awake and find out this was all just some dream.

She trails a fingertip over the hard length of his dick, and he almost closes his eyes in in a kind of surrender.

Slowly, so there's no mistaking his intention, he fists a hand around the lace below her hipbone, and then he gives a firm yank, tearing the fabric cleanly in two.

The look Karen gives him is dryly amused as she watches him fling the scraps of cloth aside. "I liked that pair," she remarks, the heel of her palm kneading over his dick in what he thinks might be a perfectly fair punishment.

"So'd I," says Frank, breathing out hard through his nose as she flicks the first button open, giving his zipper a slow, languid tug. "I'll get you another one."

She actually laughs at that, a light, musical hum of a sound. "Oh, will you?"

"Maybe something that doesn't rip so easy next time."

He watches her pause at the implication of this, and when he looks up at her, expression laid bare, her eyes are bright, her smile going soft at the corners. All he can think is how badly he'd like to kiss her again.

Karen seems to be of the same mind, bending down just as he's surging upward, capturing their lips back together. He can taste her on her own tongue, leaving him halfway delirious with the need for more, thumb finding her clit again and giving it firm, broad strokes.

She's still fumbling around with his jeans, but the motion derails her a moment, her body shuddering into his. "You stop that," she's gasping in reprimand, and he would've smirked at her, but then her hands are on him again, more insistent this time, and the situation is suddenly, terribly dire to him.

She tugs, and Frank lifts his ass off the couch so she can drag his jeans down past his hips, his boxer briefs going with them. His dick springs out, and he's groaning into her mouth from the relief of that alone, breaking the kiss to suck in another sharp breath as she closes her hand around him.

He's moving without any real conscious effort to do so, their lower bodies working in tandem to shove the rest of his clothes off him completely. And then there's a moment – mere seconds of space that seem to expand into some kind of forever, with the way Karen's gazing down at him, and she is everything that's beautiful to him in this world.

He's rocking himself into her hand, vision guttering out as she thumbs a bead of moisture from the head and slowly lowers her body back toward his. His own hands are – all over her, stroking her thighs, squeezing her ass, roaming up her back to tangle into her hair again—

And then they're stilling, and the air catches tight in his chest as she guides his dick between her thighs, sinking the tip of it in before sliding herself down the rest of the way. The sound that she makes is some kind of crime, and Frank has to grind his jaw shut with the effort of holding himself back as she takes in the rest of him, and  _fuck_ , she feels—

She's everywhere, in that moment. The tight warmth of her surrounding his dick, the clean scent of her skin, the softness in each of her curves as he strokes and caresses his way down her body. His hands come to rest over her backside again, squeezing there as Karen starts to move, a slow, mesmerizing rock of her hips back and forth.

He lets his head fall into the couch, breathing heavy, watching his dick slide out and then enter her again, inch by tantalizing inch. He's coated in a light sheen of her, their bodies clenching together each time he's buried back to the hilt, and he's throbbing all over even now with the desire to fuck her over and over again.

She grips both his shoulders, pitching back with a strangled-sounding moan, and his hand follows the bend of her body, dragging up the side of her rib cage to cup a palm over her breast.

" _Frank_ ," she sighs, moving her hips in earnest now, rutting down hard as he presses himself upward to meet her each time. He growls back some kind of half-incoherent response, wondering how she can make him feel so broken and whole all at once.

She's everything, he thinks. The thing that he burns for. The thing that keeps bringing him back.

 _Karen. Karen. Karen_.

It's been an age since he's had his mouth on her, and he decides to set that to rights, closing his arms around her waist and hauling her back up against him. He laves his tongue over the darkened peak of her nipple, bracing a hand against her spine as she stretches and keens into him. She tugs her fingers through his hair as he kisses his way up her sternum, pausing to sample each mole that he finds, until he's reached the curve of her throat.

Frank sucks a kiss there, but it splinters apart at the edges, lips parting and dragging over her skin with a groan as she moves her hips against his just so, somehow taking him in even deeper. He reaches over, grabs her ass in both hands and lifts, grinding her down onto him in short, rhythmic motions.

Her mouth finds his, and the kiss is nothing short of messy, all teeth and tongue and shallowed sounds, bodies slick with their sweat as they rise together. He can feel the heat of his release building, the low churn of it spreading outward to tingle up his spine, and it makes his movements erratic, each thrust more and more difficult to control.

Karen's trembling and tight in his arms, he can feel her careening toward her own kind of edge, but he's already too damn close, too close and too desperate to last as long as he can for her.

She makes a small noise of confusion in protest when he puts a placating hand on her waist for a moment, but then she's "Oh"ing softly as he lifts her clean off the couch and tumbles her down onto her back, dick sliding halfway out as he does.

He re-positions himself over her, cocooning her head with his forearm as she settles her hands onto either side of his face.

"Hey," he says, voice gruff from going unused, and when she smiles up at him, she looks like the sun after a life's worth of rain. Frank thumbs back her hair, gently brushing over her cheekbone as he drops down to slant his mouth against hers, kissing her hard and slow.

He reaches between their bodies, teasing his dick across her opening before easing back into her, and their kiss grows sloppy, hurried, heavy with want as he fucks her in earnest again.

It takes a moment, to bring themselves back to that same breathless rhythm, but then he's dipping his fingers down low, pressing into the swollen nub of her clit. He works her over, feeling her walls tense around him as she arcs her head back with a moan. His mouth falls to her throat, breath stopping short with each forceful drive of his hips into hers.

Her hands are flexing into his hair, these blissful sounds coming out of her with more and more urgency, and he tightens the movements of his fingers, surging with his whole body into her as she cries out.

And then she's falling to pieces, mouth dropping open on a last throaty gasp as she arches against him and stiffens all over. Her nails rake down his back, digging out half-moons that he almost hopes will leave a scar, to remind him of this, of Karen as she whispers his name and comes apart for him.

He rides out the sensation, tonguing kisses up and down her neck while she shudders and shudders beneath him, finally letting off on the pressure when she reaches for his hand. She locks their fingers together, not seeming to mind that they're still damp, and she leads his hand back up her body, closing it firmly over her breast.

"Don't stop," she breathes, "Frank, don't stop," and her arms are wrapping around his neck, lips warm against his temple as she says it again,  _Frank, God, harder, Frank_.

He doesn't hold back, quickening the pace of his thrusts as he chases after his own release now, pounding into her harder when she drapes a long leg over his waist with a breathy noise of encouragement. He gropes at her breast and then travels upward, cupping the side of her throat as pleasure blooms and sears through him, white-hot and blinding.

"Karen, I—"  _fuck_ , "I'm—"

He pulls out just in time, pumping a hand over his dick once, twice, a third time before he's spilling out onto her belly, chest heaving with a full-weighted groan. She's waiting for him, when he collapses back into her side, fingers smoothing out the sweat-matted hair by his forehead.

Her lips ghost his skin, and he closes his eyes, feeling heavy all over with the last spine-tingling remnants of orgasm. Long minutes pass, simply by holding each other, until the high he's been riding starts to give way at the edges. He forces his eyes open again, taking her chin in his hand until she's glancing back at him.

She's – glowing, he thinks, all softness and everything light in this world, and he doesn't know which would hurt him more in the long run, to keep on staring, or to look away from her.

"'M sorry," he rasps, when he has the breath to again. "Shit, Karen, I…"

She's half-twisting down toward the floor, scooping up what remains of her underwear as he struggles back onto his forearm. "Just use this," she tells him, teasing, and he shakes his head with a sidelong smirk, wipes up his mess as best as he can.

"I'm sorry about that too, but, uh." He clears his throat, takes her hand into his. "'S'not what I meant." His voice drops low with the gravity of what he knows he needs to say, what she deserves, what  _has_  to be said before he can even start to believe that he could ever deserve her too. "It wasn't supposed to be like this. I – I would've, um."

Karen doesn't say anything, only gazes at him with a carefully blank expression, and he forges on, a bareness to his words as he says, "I would've wanted to tell you, what you mean to me, Karen, before we ever…"

She turns her body into his, their legs tangling together, and then she's propping herself onto her elbow, relaxing her cheek against the back of her hand. "I think you needed to figure that out more than I did, Frank." She flattens her other hand over his chest, and he shakes out another breath before tugging her closer to him.

Her belly's still sticky, but she doesn't seem to mind it, letting him slot her body up against his, shivering only slightly as he strokes a hand along her side.

"I still don't know the right way to do any of this, Karen." It's all coated in gravel, the words that come out. He's never been good with saying the right thing, either. "But I'm here."

"Which means you don't have to do it alone," she says lightly, and he knows it's not meant as a question, but she's not quite looking at him, like she thinks he might still need space to decide if this is what he truly wants.

Frank snags a hand on a blanket tucked over the top of the couch, tugging it down to drape over their legs. Something loosens with the motion, her body relaxing fully into his as he settles his hand on the small of her back.

He shifts the arm he's been leaning on, palming the top of her head and catching locks of her hair between his fingers. She's calm, and the deep rise and fall of her chest against his helps to steady him too, his gaze finally slowing to rest firmly on hers.

"You know, funny thing about being lonely," he murmurs, "Someone told me once…" as she's biting back a smile from him.

Frank sways forward, intent, and Karen's eyes, blue enough to drown him right there, flicker down to his mouth as he leans in to kiss her. She opens herself to him, and it's another kind of drowning – fighting to make his way back, because he knows what this means now, and she is everything worth learning to live for again.


End file.
